The Carnival of Rio delivered a magical spectacle for its first night, the jubilation and the magic of the parade to make people forget two years of tragedy due to the Covid-19 which bled Brazil.
To make up for lost time, to make up for lost joy, such was the desire of some 20,000 dancers and percussionists from the six samba schools who marched fervently through the sambadrome and of the 75,000 spectators who shouted at each other in the stands as they passed.
“We missed the carnival so much, what energy there will be”, predicted before marching in the night from Friday to Saturday Tita Nunes, a 31-year-old Brazilian, in reference to the cancellation of the festivities in 2021.
“After all this tragedy, we must celebrate life,” said Thelma Fonseca, a dazzling smile and a glitter costume, dancer from the Imperatriz school.
“We have been waiting for this carnival for two years. We are very happy,” added this 43-year-old employee.
Six samba schools paced the 700 meters of the sambadrome for an hour, in an orgy of feathers, glitter, percussion and wild dancing. They marched with allegorical floats as high as multi-storey buildings, sometimes staggering.
Six others will parade for the second carnival night, until dawn on Sunday. The title of champion will cover the best samba school with glory.
The cancellation of the carnival last year was experienced as a national tragedy by Brazilians, as it is in the DNA of an entire people crazy about samba.
But a year ago, COVID-19 killed 3,000 people a day in Brazil, compared to 100 today. The sambadrome had been converted into a vaccination center.
The pandemic has made Brazil the second most bereaved country in the world behind the United States, with more than 660,000 dead.
Justice and inclusion
As usual, the samba schools, mostly from the favelas, addressed political themes in their parades.
Eight of the 12 schools scheduled to perform on the two nights chose to represent anti-racism and the African roots of samba.
Third school to march in the early hours of Saturday, Salgueiro presented with some 3,000 dancers and percussionists his show in the form of a punch, “Resistance”, inspired by the protest movement “Black Lives Matter” which shook the United States.
On lavish floats, dancers swayed in front of signs: “Freedom comes from black people” or “Justice” and “Inclusion”.
Under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, “racism is more humiliating, because it comes from above”, says Claudia Nascimento – who marched with Salgueiro – in reference to the far-right president known for his racist sallies .
By choosing the 1919 carnival as its theme, organized after the terrible Spanish flu, the Unidos do Viradouro school metaphorically evoked this 2022 edition of post-Covid rebirth.
The party that everyone was waiting for was bereaved by the death on Friday of an 11-year-old girl, crushed two days earlier by a tank at the exit of the sambadrome.
“Without the carnival, Rio would not be Rio”, exulted its mayor and first admirer, Eduardo Paes, on Wednesday, declaring open “the greatest show on Earth”.
Apart from the jubilation, the carnival brings a windfall to the “Marvellous City”, where it generates 45,000 jobs and 4 billion nes (about 800 million euros) in income.
In 2020, Rio had received more than 2.1 million tourists. This year, even if there are fewer foreigners, the hotel industry, devastated by COVID-19, is delighted with an occupancy rate of 85%.
Critics against Bolsonaro
Close to evangelicals who do not appreciate the sensual debauchery of carnival, President Jair Bolsonaro does not like the Carioca party. And this one makes him feel good.
In the spans, we could see spectators showing off large yellow fabrics with the portrait of the gagged president above which we read “Fora!” (“outside!”).
“The carnival is a political and anti-fascist demonstration,” said Nairobi Coelho, 43, an administrator in the oil sector, who marched.
“After two years of isolation (this carnival) has a special taste, that of a victory for science which has developed a vaccine against the virus and of the hope of a change of government in this election year” , she explains. In the presidential election in October, Bolsonaro will try to be re-elected.